Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does » How crooked is English football: here’s a few examples
I read a strange thing today on Le Grove. Now if you read the bits and pieces here regularly you will know that we are pro-Wenger, and Le Grove are, how shall I put it, well, not.
But as I have said before, even though I don’t agree with almost all of what they say, they argue their case cogently, and I like to keep an eye on their point of view just to see where it goes.
Anyway, they were talking about the John Terry affair, and calling on Capello to sack Terry on something akin to moral grounds.
Now to me that is ludicrous, not because I care whether the Terry character has had an affair or not, but rather because Le Grove was calling on a man who has been found guilty of a whole series of serious crimes to deal with Terry on moral issues, when Capello had just paid a £6m fine to the financial police in Italy – with the question of perjury charge coming up behind. If you want the whole story there is a link at the end of this piece.
My thoughts worked thus: I don’t blame Le Grove for not knowing about this – only a handful of websites have run the story in this country, although it is major news in Italy. But the fact is that the press in this country are going big time into Terry and his relationship, but utterly ignoring the fact that it is hard to see how the England manager passes a fit and proper person test.
Why will the press in this country not cover the corruption of football? My guess is that because it is so all pervading and because they want to be able to keep talking to the top dogs. Sir Alex F Word’s refusal to talk to the BBC etc because it did an expose on his son, is just amusing, but if all the managers shut up, that would be something.
In fact there are corruption stories everywhere, and indeed that was the theme of yesterday’s Making the Arsenal blog – the corruption in football when Man U and Liverpool were involved in match fixing. Again, a link appears at the end.
So lets start with…
DERBY County, one of many clubs to have been raped by its owners. And let me say at once that much of the information here comes from the excellent Supporters Direct news service. (You can join it for free by emailing supporters-direct-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)
Derby is still trying to get back the money stolen from them in 2003. The case is now one that can be openly discussed since the crooks who owned Derby have just lost their appeal.
Derby’s former director of football a Mr Mackay and the former finance director Mr Mackenzie are serving 18 months each in a suitable institution. They are disqualified from being company directors for three years, because they are guilty of defrauding Derby County of £125,000 (plus VAT).
Also doing time is former chief executive Mr Keith, who was done for false accounting. He was also disqualified from being a company director. A solicitor (now ex-solicitor) he also went to prison – in his case for money laundering.
Well, you know, Derby, not exactly top league eh?
Probably not, so let’s have a look at oh, I don’t know, say Portsmouth.
The man in charge of events at Portsmouth is Daniel Azougy, who has just negotiated the sales of Younes Kaboul, to Tottenham, and Begovic, to Stoke, at knock down prices. Good for Arry doing a deal like that – getting a player on the cheap from his old club. Clever guy, Arry.
Except Mark Jacob, the solicitor who is executive director at Portsmouth, is reported to have refused to sign off the Tottenham deal on the grounds it was too cheap. But of course Arry would never do anyone out of an honest shilling – at least not at his old club, and not while he is about to appear before the beak on charges of fraud. (I have no evidence against Arry and make no allegation).
Peter Storrie is also about to face the court, and according to the Guardian he signed off the deal arranged by Azougy. (The ex-owner is also about to face the court, but that’s a story for another day).
So nothing wrong then – just a cheap player and some old geezers going to court. Well…
Azougy who seems to be running the finance show at Portsmouth was convicted of fraud and deception offences in Israel and served a prison sentence. He was also disqualified from serving as a solicitor for 14 years for “obstructing the course of justice by showing false documents to judges.”
But that was in the past, and he has done his time, so surely the poor guy needs a chance in a new country.
Except that in March 2009 Azougy was again fined given a prison sentence (suspended) and did community work for handing false documents to the Israeli stock exchange.
Pesky things these documents.
The judge in the first case said of Azougy that he was: “A sophisticated lawyer willing to do anything to reach his own personal goals. He lied, cheated, used a forged document and stole money from his clients.”
Actually that is very similar to what the Judge in the USA court said about FIFA in the credit card case where he said, “they lied, and lied, and lied again”.
Ah football. Seems to bring out the worst in people.
So anyway, Azougy is a fit and proper person, and now he runs Portsmouth’s finances and sells players cut price to Arry. But enough of the doom and gloom. Let’s turn to the lighter side of football.
The club previously known as West Iceland and now known as West Porno usually manage to give us something. That awfully nice Karen Brady previously Director of Certain Things at Birmingham is now Vice Chair at West Porno. Funny phrase that, Vice Chair.
She said that the club would try and move to the Olympic Stadium after some sort of game type thing they are holding there, and change the club’s name to West Ham Olympic. The Olympic busybodies then said, “the word ‘Olympic’ is our patent, and you can’t”.
What’s funny is that even I, who have no interest in Olympics, know that the body that runs the drug infested loss making event every four years protects the word very seriously and it seems Ms Brady didn’t even check. Perhaps even funnier is that she didn’t think that it would matter changing the club’s commonly used initials WHU to WHO. “Who are you?” indeed.
There’s so much more, but its evening and I want a cup of tea. Have a read of some of this…
How Man U and Liverpool fixed relegation issues and failed to back down.
My wonderful whizzo book
Life? It’s just 42.
(c) Tony “I ain’t done nothing wrong guv, it was the other guy” Attwood 2010.